Question 1. Conduct a Toulmin analysis of Woolf’s essay. What is her claim? What are her reasons to support that claim? What are the warrants that underlie the claim?  – Her claims center around the futility of Life. The constant reminder of the death of the Moth reflects Virginia’s own views on her death. Combining these together I believe she is talking about the futility of life in the face of absolute death. This is supported by the line “But, as I stretched out a pencil, meant to help him to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness were the approach of death. I laid the pencil down again.”

2- What is Woolf’s purpose in writing this essay? To explore? inform? convince? meditate or pray?  

What are the warrants that underlie the claim?  – Her claims center around the futility of Life. The Moth is a representation of the average person going through the flow of life. The essay speaks volumes about the nature of death and life. Through my analysis, I find that the Moth in many ways is an avatar of Virginia Woolf. The moth like Virginia is trapped within a small space and all it could do was move back and forth. The Moth isn’t gay like the Butterflies, is a line I understood as pointing out to the men in society. The Moth is also not somber like its own kind, which connected the lives of Women during her time. She through the Moth is trying to show that she feels out of place in society. 

3)- Although the essay is hard to understand at times, what makes this essay so memorable is that it’s the author’s last work. This is Virginia Woolf’s final work and it has themes tied to death. Death is one of people’s biggest fears and the same could be said for Virginia Wolf. She takes the topic of death and breathes life into it.